For teachers and parents

What's on the site

Tap a bug and it comes after your pointer or finger, crawling, hopping or flying as it would in real life. A woodlouse will roll up if you rush it. Behind each one is a page with six facts, photographs of the real thing, where to look and what to do if you find one.

You can come at the site in two ways. Going by place, the UK section covers the garden, meadow, pond, log pile and after dark. Going by type puts beetles, butterflies, spiders and the rest together, and each type has notes on what makes that group different. That second route is the handy one for sorting and classifying.

Links to primary science

We've matched the site to the science curriculum for England. If you teach in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, your curriculum is different, but minibeast topics are much the same. None of this is a ready-made lesson plan: it's a guide to which pages will be useful.

Year 2: microhabitats

The curriculum asks children to name animals in their habitats, including microhabitats, and bugs are the obvious way in. The log pile and pond pages show who lives there, and the woodlouse page explains why it has to stay somewhere damp: it breathes with gills.

Year 4: grouping and classification keys

This is where the site is strongest. The types pages show what makes each group different, so children can work out their own key. Good starting questions are how many legs it has, and whether it has wings. Spiders have eight legs and no antennae, and centipedes, millipedes and woodlice aren't insects either. Pages such as the dragonfly also show predators and prey for work on food chains: its young hunt tadpoles in the pond.

Year 5: the life cycle of an insect

The orange-tip page follows the single egg, the caterpillar and a chrysalis shaped like a thorn. To compare it with an insect that has no chrysalis, try the mayfly or dragonfly, whose young live underwater as nymphs. You'll need to bring in other pages or books for the full picture, since each page gives only the highlights of a life cycle.

Year 6: classification and adaptation

Two examples we like: the orchid mantis has legs shaped like petals, and insects come to it thinking it is a flower. The monarch keeps the poison from the milkweed its caterpillars eat, and its orange wings warn birds off. Both are good for asking children how an animal's body suits the way it lives.

Things to do with the site

• Use the fact sheets. The button on each bug's page prints a single A4 sheet, or saves one as a PDF, with its facts and a photo, plus space for children to draw it and write down what they found out. They work well as a follow-up to a hunt, or for a class display of the log pile.
• Go on a minibeast hunt. Look under stones and logs in the school grounds or garden, then use the types pages to work out what you've found. Children should have an adult with them, handle anything they find gently, and put stones and logs back as they were.
• Sort before you read. Open the A to Z on the big screen and ask the class to group a dozen bugs in their own way, then compare their groups with ours.
• Keep a tally. The spotter's list can be ticked on screen or printed, which makes it easy to record a week of sightings.
• Hold a shadow quiz. The quiz hides each bug in shadow, and children have to decide what it is from its shape alone. It's a nice way to get them talking about legs, wings and body parts.

For peace of mind

Nobody has to sign up, and there are no adverts or anything to buy. We don't use tracking cookies or analytics, and anything a child ticks stays on that device. The details are on the privacy page.

A boy called Hugo acts as the site's guide. If you would rather have a quiet room, his voice and his pop-ups can be turned off. At the bottom of each page there's a comment box that sends a message to us, so it's worth asking children to leave out their names and where they live.

The site covers a few bugs that bite or sting, such as the redback spider. We say so plainly and without trying to frighten anyone, and the great majority of bugs here are no danger to people at all. If a child is nervous of spiders, you may like to look at those pages first.

Spotted a mistake?

We write the facts ourselves at Follow Me Creations. We aren't entomologists, so please double-check anything your lesson depends on. If something is wrong, or you have a suggestion for how the site could work better in a classroom, email info@limefreshdesign.co.uk.